Prepare the Vomit Bag

The Gordon and Hillary Show: stiff upper lips mandatory
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By Tom Baldwin
The London Times
Friday, August 3, 2007

Such is the emotional incontinence of so much American public life it was perhaps inevitable that the subject of Gordon Brown’s dead daughter would be raised — not once, but twice — when he visited the US this week.

President Bush was first out of the traps, at a Camp David press conference where his overfamiliarity with “Gordon, the humorous Scotsman” swiftly descended into rambling about how he was interested in a family which had “suffered unspeakable tragedy”. Mr Brown replied stiffly, thanking his host for a “compassionate” remark.

Then came an NBC Nightly News interview where the Prime Minister was asked more directly how he coped with the death of a newborn daughter and the cystic fibrosis diagnosed in his younger son. “I don’t really talk about it,” said Mr Brown, before muttering something about being a good father.

Neither the President nor NBC meant any harm, explained one of those political strategists that proliferate in Washington. “They probably thought they were doing Brown a favour in getting him on to a personal narrative and life experience.”

The idea is that if you can hear a politician’s pain, you might think he will feel yours. So Mr Bush has admitted being a recovering alcoholic whose “Goodbye Jack Daniels, hello Jesus” moment propelled him into the White House. John McCain rarely goes a full day without mentioning how he was tortured at the hands of the Vietcong.

John Edwards spent much of his 2004 presidential campaign talking about his dead son — and a good portion of this one going on about his wife’s breast cancer. Barack Obama has turned his life story into two books and a political movement.

Yes, birds do it, bees do it, even educated “OEs” (that’s Old Etonians, to those of us who didn’t go there) do it — with David Cameron making more references to his disabled son than might be deemed strictly necessary.

But, as America discovered this week, Mr Brown definitely does not do it. And nor, usually, does Hillary Clinton. These two politicians, hard and serious to the point of being brittle, have much in common. Both are emerging from the shadow of a troubled, even jealous, relationship with more charismatic partners in Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. Both have had to wait an awful long time for a chance to succeed them. And both have sometimes received bad advice that they will not get the top job unless they lighten up and show a more human side.

The difference is that Mr Brown is now Prime Minister and Mrs Clinton is not (yet) President. As such, he appears to have lost some of the self-doubt that once afflicted his sombre style.

It was noticeable that, even as Mr Brown was deftly side-stepping invitations to discuss deeply personal matters in America this week, Mrs Clinton was getting into a lather over a “grossly inappropriate” article in The Washington Post about her cleavage after some recent sartorial diversions from her standard-issue Hillary trouser suit.

No matter how well her angry response plays with women Democratic donors, who swiftly received an e-mail from her campaign urging them to “take a stand” against the pettiness of American political culture (ie, send money now), she should not have risen to it.

While her husband can scarcely open his mouth without natural empathy dribbling from its corners, Mrs Clinton’s efforts to display emotion appear stilted and artificial. Her autobiography, Living History, is one of the most sterile pieces of literature ever written. Look at this from her similarly hygienic website: “The promise of America was very real as Hillary was growing up. She learned that no matter who you are or where you’re from, if you worked hard and played by the rules, you could provide a good life for your family.” Yuck.

Her friends insist that she is a big bag of fun in private but, even if that is true, it does not exactly come across in public. Mr Brown’s aides used to say the same about him and, occasionally, would buy him some leisure wear or issue a list of his top pop tunes on the ground that this sort of thing seemed to work for Mr Blair. It was mutton and lamb: Mr Blair looked comfortable in a Christian sort of way wearing jeans, and he really had been in a rock band; Mr Brown just looked weird.

As Prime Minister, however, he has put a stop to such nonsense. And so far, at least, the voters seem to like it. His strength is his strength.

The same is true of Mrs Clinton, who could learn from Mr Brown’s current popularity. In all three presidential debates this summer against her Democratic rivals, she has come across as the candidate with the experience, toughness, knowledge and intelligence needed to lead America. Her worst moments have come when she tried to laugh, giving off a scratchy clicking noise from her throat.

It may yet prove more difficult for Mrs Clinton, as she tries to become America’s first woman president, to win on qualities traditionally, if wrongly, associated with men. Some suggest there is a dysfunction between her core message of strong leadership and her core support among women. Mr Edwards’s wife, Elizabeth, has already effectively accused Mrs Clinton of behaving too much like a man.

Recent polls suggest otherwise: slowly but surely the seething resentment of those (mostly men) who regard her as some sort of Lady Macbeth figure appears to be diminishing while she has maintained high levels of support among women. Like Mr Brown, she does not need to pastel-shade her image to impress voters.

It could just be that on both sides of the Atlantic, we are ready for more serious leadership. We may not warm very much to Mr Brown or Mrs Clinton and they risk sending us all to sleep with a political style bereft of “narrative”. But at least we will know that those who turn the lights off and tuck us up are grown-ups.

Stampeding Congress, Again
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New York Times editorial
Friday, August 3, 2007

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration has repeatedly demonstrated that it does not feel bound by the law or the Constitution when it comes to the war on terror. It cannot even be trusted to properly use the enhanced powers it was legally granted after the attacks.

Yet, once again, President Bush has been trying to stampede Congress into a completely unnecessary expansion of his power to spy on Americans. And, hard as it is to believe, Congressional Republicans seem bent on collaborating, while Democrats (who can still be cowed by the White House’s with-us-or-against-us baiting) aren’t doing enough to stop it.

The fight is over the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to obtain a warrant before eavesdropping on electronic communications that involve someone in the United States. The test is whether there is probable cause to believe that the person being communicated with is an agent of a foreign power or a terrorist.

Mr. Bush decided after 9/11 that he was no longer going to obey that law. He authorized the National Security Agency to intercept international telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans and other residents of this country without a court order. He told the public nothing and Congress next to nothing about what he was doing, until The Times disclosed the spying in December 2005.

Ever since, the White House has tried to pressure Congress into legalizing Mr. Bush’s rogue operation. Most recently, it seized on a secret court ruling that spotlighted a technical way in which the 1978 law has not kept pace with the Internet era.

The government may freely monitor communications when both parties are outside the United States, but must get a warrant aimed at a specific person for communications that originate or end in this country. The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that the court that issues such warrants recently ruled that the law also requires that the government seek such an individualized warrant for purely foreign communications that, nevertheless, move through American data networks.

Instead of asking Congress to address this anachronism, as it should, the White House sought to use it to destroy the 1978 spying law. It proposed giving the attorney general carte blanche to order eavesdropping on any international telephone calls or e-mail messages if he decided on his own that there was a “reasonable belief” that the target of the surveillance was outside the United States. The attorney general’s decision would not be subject to court approval or any supervision.

The White House, of course, insisted that Congress must do this right away, before the August recess that begins on Monday — the same false urgency it used to manipulate Congress into passing the Patriot Act without reading it and approving the appalling Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Senator Jay Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, offered a sensible alternative law, as did his fellow Democrat, Senator Russ Feingold. In either case, the attorney general would be able to get a broad warrant to intercept foreign communications routed through American networks for a limited period. Then, he would have to justify the spying in court. This fix would have an expiration date so Congress could then dispassionately consider what permanent changes might be needed to FISA.

Congress was debating this issue yesterday, and the final outcome was unclear. But there are very clear lines that must not be crossed.

First, all electronic surveillance of communication that originates or ends in the United States must be subject to approval and review by the FISA court under the 1978 law. (That court, by the way, has rejected only one warrant in the last two years.)

Second, any measure Congress approves now must have a firm expiration date. Closed-door meetings under the pressure of a looming vacation are no place for such serious business.

The administration and its Republican supporters in Congress argue that American intelligence is blinded by FISA and have seized on neatly timed warnings of heightened terrorist activity to scare everyone. It is vital for Americans, especially lawmakers, to resist that argument. It is pure propaganda.

This is not, and has never been, a debate over whether the United States should conduct effective surveillance of terrorists and their supporters. It is over whether we are a nation ruled by law, or the whims of men in power. Mr. Bush faced that choice and made the wrong one. Congress must not follow him off the cliff.